CORNER BROOK — Sisters Jillian and Erin Way really have hearts of gold.
On Monday Jillian, 7, and Erin, 9, were recognized by their school for an act of kindness they showed to another little girl.
The sisters, students at Sacred Heart, along with their parents Colin and Jackie Way, recently returned from Orlando, Fla.
While at Universal Studios the family saw a little girl and Jillian said “we didn’t know what happened to her. Our dad asked me if I wanted to give my little owl to her.
“I went over and I brought it over to her and she really liked it.”
Then Jillian and Erin spent some time playing with the little girl — Daisy Sherman.
Daisy is from Pennsylvania and was born with epidermolysis bullosa, an inherited connective tissue disease that causes blisters in the skin and mucosal membranes.
Jackie said the family had been waiting in line at one of the attractions and a member of the Universal Studios staff asked them if is was OK for Daisy and her family to get ahead of them in the line.
The family didn’t mind at all and it was while they waited that Colin suggested Jillian give the stuffed toy to Daisy.
He said watching Jillian give the owl to Daisy and then seeing her and Erin play with her after “was something to see.”
Even though the blisters on her hands were painful, Daisy played with the owl the whole time.
Colin would see Daisy again while leaving the attraction “her head down on the owl asleep, cuddling it.”
Colin planned to replace the owl for Jillian, but before he had a chance an employee from Universal Studies presented her with one.
She had seen what Jillian had done and was so moved by it she wanted to see her rewarded.
Jillian and Erin both feel what they did was good.
Jillian said she didn’t mind giving up the toy.
“I felt very good about myself,” she said of her act of kindness.
Erin, who seems to be the quieter of the two, simply said “I felt proud of my sister.”
Jackie said she wasn’t surprised by what her daughters did.
“No, because that’s them. It’s not uncommon for them to do something like that.”
And even though the suggestion to give Daisy the toy came from Colin, the girls readily agreed.
Colin said he told them how they have so much themselves that it is “nice to give somebody else something.”
So how did the two come to be recognized by the school?
Erin is in Grade 4 and Jillian is in Grade 2.
Erin’s teacher Roger Matthews is friends with her mom and saw a post Jackie had made about a website — beautifuldaisy.com — on her Facebook page.
Curious he checked out the site and found that Daisy’s mom had blogged about the act of kindness.
Moved by the story, Matthews showed it to principal Frank Humber.
“We can’t let this go unrecognized,” Matthews said he told Humber.
The school actually has a way of recognizing acts like this.
Just this year, Matthews said the school started a Heart of Gold program.
Students who do some sort of act that shows kindness or respect get a Heart of Gold ticket. That ticket gets placed into a big drum and every Friday Humber draws eight names and those students are recognized for their act with a prize.
Matthews said what Jillian and Erin did “is what the Heart of Gold program is about.”
He said at the time it had nothing to do with getting a reward.
“They did it just out of the goodness of their hearts.”
A student in Erin’s class actually suggested that she deserved a Heart of Gold for “and Erin says ‘I don’t want a Heart of Gold, that’s not what I did it for,’” said Matthews.
Matthews said the school wanted to do a little more for Jillian and Erin to recognize what they did.
So on Monday, in front of the entire school Matthews told their story and the girls were presented with a bouquet of daisies.
